You Already Know
by Flipping Sheep
Summary: Roxas likes to watch things get set on fire. Axel likes to set things on fire. Roxas just might like Axel a little more than he's letting on... AU
1. Why Hallo Thar

**Title:**You Already Know.

**Rating: **M (gayness, language, ooc comments made for the sake of making the author squeal)

**Summary: **Roxas likes to watch things get set on fire. Axel likes to set things on fire. Roxas just might like Axel a little more than he's letting on. AU

**Disclaimer:** If I owned KH, there would be gratuitous cut scenes of just makey-outness in Final Mix.

**A/N** - Aha, I've never written more than a one-shot, so this'll be a challenge for me. Just an idea I had for awhile and pulled out of my ass while trying to procrastinate during midterms week. It was rotting away and now seems like a good time to post it. Some of you have seen the rough draft already. Lemme know what you think; then get back to the books. Beware of random updates and long periods of dead-ness. 8D

* * *

_Why do you like…this? It's certainly a very…unique hobby. _

It was a good question; one that four shrinks, numerous friends, and my family (including the extended members that don't really count) couldn't weasel out an answer to. To be honest, I'm still not really sure if **I** can answer that question. The better question, the one everyone thought they had the answer to and never questioned me about, is this:

_When did your fascination start?_

The psychologists gave me a load of bullshit about my "raging pubescent hormonal tendencies" kicking in at a "critical time in my young life" which led to a chain reaction of "poorly judged choices." Friends and family thought it was the big move from our sheltered island to the big apple. It was neither, actually. It started with a cherry red Ferrari driven by one Riku Sentoya (read: huge jerk) kidnapping my brother Sora and taking him across the country to live in beautiful California not nine months after we moved to New York. [1 The kidnapping – which, by the way, racked up a huge flight bill that made almost Cloud go serial (first class is pretty pricey) occurred at night and, according to Sora, involved a purple octopus sushi, three boxes of pocky, and a lot of gasoline. Don't laugh.

Anyway. So after Sora and Jerkface left town for bigger and better things (read: gay montage), the rest of us were left to pick up the slack he left behind.

At the risk of sounding like something straight out of a medical textbook – those first couple of months afterward were hard on everyone. He left the summer before our junior year in high school; it was the summer we were supposed fly back to Destiny Island for the first time in two years and spend hanging out on the boardwalk eating sea-salt ice cream. He forgot, which was just like him.

New York went from exciting to just barely bearable. Little things that Sora's carefree attitude never minded suddenly seemed especially nerve grating to me. Schoolwork, for example, was too much of a hassle. Who really cared what the capital of China was? The number of figs leftover if there were 47 to start with, and Bob ate three, spit out two, gave four to a friend, and threw out five of them? Who cared if there was a unit test of _Hamlet_ coming up? Not me. Needless to say, my sophmore year teachers didn't hand me awards and shower me with gold stars. I stayed above passing, though, and moved onto my junior year.

On a social aspect, things weren't doing too well either. Friends and dates were a thing of the past. Aside from the ones I had made way back when (and even those were rapidly thinning out), I hadn't really met anyone new. It's kind of hard to befriend someone who sleeps all day in class. Although I must say that my dark, brooding – ha – sensuous personality drew girls to me during that year the way it did _every_ year, until my lack of charm and knack for being honest got to them (i.e. "You pierced your ear on the wrong side, idiot. _That's_ why everyone thinks you're gay.") the way it did every year.

Parties didn't need my downcast attitude, and I didn't need the cheap alcohol-veiled misery (and puking, wobbling idiots) that came with so many of our high school parties.

So here comes to the interesting part; the one factor in my life that shocked people the most and ultimately led to the seven professionals hired by my mom. I liked watching things burn. Alot. I set alot of things on fire. To be honest, if it exploded and even caused _sparks_, I probably loved it. At first, it was just little things, like picking up a lighter on the street and just flicking it occasionally. Then, I moved onto collecting matchbooks – much better than lighters, because there was that distinctly acrid smell – for the sheer pleasure of watching things burn. Just watching that first little flame flare to life gave me a high that no drug could imitate.

After pointing out to my seventh shrink that I could also be out on the streets shooting up coke and buying prostitutes like the rest of my school, he sagely advised my mom to accept my obsession.

It was the first day of school as a junior, and I sat bored and tired between two empty seats in the back of the classroom, listening to yet another teacher give yet another pep talk about staying focused this year in a monotone voice and a deadpan expression. Most of the girls put on a decidedly interested front (read: pulled their shirts lower), though their fake smiles were cracking with every syllable (there was only so much good looks could make an exception for). Most of the guys had decided to pull out their skin mags and were…busy. For a moment, I found myself wondering why a teacher with the looks of a god was teaching in a school filled with prissy idiots, and why said teacher was wearing leather pants in a school environment. Then I remembered that I didn't care. Stifling what would've been an otherwise obnoxious yawn with one hand, I snuck a glance at the clock. 10:15.

I rested my chin in my palm, digging half-crescent shaped marks into my jaw, and sighed. Another wasted day doing nothing when I could be somewhere else doing nothing. Like California. It was kind of funny how my thoughts always managed to trail back to Sora and the life he was living without me. My eyes had worked its way up the aisle to rest on Naminé – my best friend since first grade, an exception to the legion of horny females, and whose only passion was drawing - when the rickety door to the room slammed opened, hinges creaking, and a freakishly tall boy with flame-red hair and small tattoos under his eyes shoved himself into (later, I would admit into my life, as well) the room. Clearly unwanted anywhere else. My body went rigid with surprise, and I (along with twenty-one other pairs of eyes) trailed the lanky boy's every move.

"...I don't have time to deal with this… oh_ fine, _stay here, Axel! See if I care!" A haggard looking hall monitor who reeked suspiciously of smoke shrugged helplessly at our teacher before rolling his eyes at the newcomer and turning heel. The boy possibly named Axel flipped the retreating figure the middle finger and mimicked the monitor's exasperated eye roll. Our teacher – I think he told us to call him Leon – arched an eyebrow disapprovingly. The class waited on baited breath for Leon's next move; the red-haired wonder did no such thing. Instead, he threw a crumpled pink detention slip onto the teacher's desk in the front of the room, headed all the way to the back of the room, and took the nearest empty seat, which just happened to be next to me. This could_not_ be happening to me, but _oh god_ wait – it was.

Usually, when people sat by me now, they'd pretend I wasn't there; just another cut of pork at the meat market of life. Not Axel though; as soon as his bright, bright green eyes caught me staring, his lips pulled back to form a feral grin, all teeth and danger. It sent shivers down my spine, his eyes, his smirk, his thin (practically anorexic) frame – not like I was jealous or anything – everything about him. For a moment I saw familiarity and doubt in the depths of his eyes.

"I'm Axel. Have we met before?" His voice was low and strangled.

Startled, and suddenly aware of my visibility, I turned away and faced the board, pretending to be interested by the six different expo markers on the white board ledge. His eyes burned holes into the side of my head.

"Roxas. And no, probably not." I said stiffly, feeling bile rise in my throat. For some reason, feeling his breath graze my cheek bought an unexplainable piercing sensation to my chest. The sooner I got out of here, the better.

Apparently that answer wasn't good enough for Axel, because out of the corner of my eye he started to lean towards me, eyes narrowed – only to be abruptly cut off by an absolutely raging – by raging, I mean lips pressed together in a thin line but an otherwise cool, calm, and collected – Leon. My savior.

"New kid. Out. _Now_."

Axel spared one last glance over his shoulder before storming out. I should've known then that things would never be the same. Looking down, my fingers were still shaking with not-quite fear.

It'd be a week or so until I saw Axel again.


	2. In Which Roxas Gets Molested

See Chapter One for misc. details.

**A/N** - Eek! Thank you everyone who faved/reviewed/alerted. Appreciate it. :)

I took the liberty of editing some of the details and formatting chapter one to make it more readable. Crack ahead.

* * *

"God, could this day get any worse?" I muttered under my breath, dialing my brother's number into the grubby number pad of my cell phone with one hand and delicately picking a spitball out of my hair with the other. Detention. Sucked. 

Strange. The call went straight to voicemail. Apparently God's way of telling me, Why yes, Roxas, yes it can. I called several more times before leaving a frantic message that went along the lines of, "Cloud, pick up the phone, I got detention; I need a ride home. Call me back."

Rain ran off my forehead and into my eyeball, (Ow) so I did what any self-respecting teenager would do. I cursed off a raindrop and took out my anger on a nearby cement pillar (Well, _fuck_) before taking cover under the awning.

It was had been a thoroughly unpleasant afternoon, and from the look of the suddenly-grey skies, it was about to get a lot more…unpleasant-er. I'd accidentally fallen asleep in Aerith's class, and she had made me stay after school writing a three hundred word short story about a chocobo named Fuzzy and the importance of staying awake in English class. I'd half-assed the entire thing and handed it to her (all two hundred and ninety-nine words) half expecting her to tell me to redo it, but she scanned it quickly, smiled in a pleased sort of way and told me I clearly had a gift for writing. I plastered a grimace on my face for the next ten minutes as she raved about how excellent this piece was, especially the part where Fuzzy was punished for not paying attention by being thrown into the incinerator by Htirea, his wicked teacher.

Contrary to popular belief, Aerith was kind of weird.

Anyway, I was waiting outside in the rain for Cloud to pick me up. Or at least, I'd been waiting for twenty minutes and was still waiting.

And waiting. I checked my cellphone. No new messages.

…still waiting. Two chittering girls walked past me, and one of them flipped her hair over her shoulder sending a mist of rain into my face. Ooh. Strawberries.

Forty-five minutes later, I was silently plotting my brother's untimely demise. The only excuse I would accept at this point was that he'd been attacked by members of the triad after borrowing money to buy waffles and was currently bleeding to death in a gutter somewhere – in which case, I hoped he'd had the decency to call me a cab before he lost consciousness. No calls, messages – no sign of him in the parking lot.

I was setting his stuffed animal collection on fire as soon as I got home. Whenever that was.

The first set of late buses had driven away, leaving me - rapidly getting soaked – on the sidewalk (irritated, I'd called Naminé, and she'd suggested for me to wait outside of the awning for "just a few more minutes" because Cloud "might not have seen me") looking like some half-drowned sewer rat. But then, like a beacon of light…(cue angelic music)

"Blondie! You look like some half-drowned sewer rat." In a scene right out of a teenage drama, I whipped around and blinked away a few raindrops off my eyelashes to glare at the redhead striding towards me, jingling his car keys. Fucker. Probably just got out of detention. Not that I was one to say anything.

"No shit, Sherlock." I said sourly and crossed my arms to stave off another shiver. He noticed anyway and peeled off his damp sweater before throwing it over my head and a casual arm around my shoulders, pulling me close enough to feel his breath on the shell of my ear as he purred, "I'd be nicer if I were you."

A thousand warning lights went off.

"I don't need a ride, and definitely not from you. You'll probably crash and kill us bo-"

As if completely deaf, Axel adjusted the black hoodie on me and said, "So it's settled!" Before I had another chance to complain, he dragged me out to his car – a plain Honda with CDs thrown left and right in the backseat (a quick glance told me that crazy he was, but bad taste in music he had not)– and threw me into the passenger side. My butt squeaked on the leather and he chortled before slamming the passenger door shut before I could comment on his immaturity. Blowing a straggly strand of hair off my face, I wondered where his surreptitious attitude had gone from the first time I'd seen him. He seemed all fun and games today.

* * *

After giving him my address, I pressed myself as far away from him as possible. Axel snuck a few cat-like glances at me, smiling the entire time. An awkward silence descended between us, and Axel took it into his hands to remedy the situation; he turned on the radio, upped the volume and thumped his fingers against the steering wheel. Four seconds into the song, I was beginning to feel a little awkward. A few tacky guitar bars, then: 

"_I wanna love you in my room…._

_I wanna take off all your clothes"_

My fingers inched toward the dial. He batted my hand away easily without taking his eyes off the road.

"_I wanna see you in the day time_

_I wanna see you in my room"  
_

"Have you ever seen the music video for this song? It's a fucking riot. It's like a slideshow of people making out." Axel said cheerily, over the "wah oh oh oh oh ohhh"s over the speakers. At this point, I was trying to melt into the leather seats. He finally noticed my discomfort and patted me reassuringly in a spot vaguely higher than my hip. Judging from the fact he was glaring at the road and honking at some car that was driving 40 in a 60mph zone, it had probably been an accident. Nonetheless, it was the last straw. I unbuckled my seatbelt and flung myself at the window, scrabbling at the glass,

"I'M STUCK IN A CAR WITH A MOLESTER – PLEASE HELP!"

The car swerved a little into the left lane, and I think I heard Axel say, "Jesus!" but thankfully he recovered and he smiled and waved at the stunned couple in the car next to us.

"Roxas," he said, still waving, but sounding a little panicky now, "sit down, I'm fucking driving. And wear your damn seatbelt."

* * *

Axel killed the engine in front of my house and looked over at me; I was already ripping off my seatbelt and grabbing my scattered books (I'd made a few other attempts to escape, nearly causing a three-car collision at the intersection) while pointedly ignoring his unnervingly steady gaze. He handed me my biology textbook, which I snatched out of his fingers. I didn't want his filthy molester fingers on my stuff, which is probably why I jumped a mile into the air (figuratively, of course. We were in a damn car, after all) when his filthy molester fingers shot out and grabbed my collar as I jerked open the car door. 

I was hanging half in and half- out of the car. I think my biology book was in a puddle somewhere in the vicinity of my right foot. My pant leg was getting wet.

I couldn't move. I couldn't even shut the door.

I couldn't really do anything except accept Axel's not-so filthy molester hands fisting my hair and his not-so filthy mouth on my suddenly filthy ones and make these filthy little noises that seemed to make Axel get all makey-outy, so I bit his lip and he pulled away.

I stared kind of stupidly at him breathe all funny.

"I want…that sweater back." was all he said, though.

And then he pushed me out of the car and drove away. How rude.

In hindsight I would note the fact I forgot to say thank you. (For the ride, not the impromptu make-out session) At the time though, I was confused and wet and cranky. I hightailed it out of his arms and into my house, never turning once. It was a good thing I didn't, though as I soon found out. When I all but stumbled down the kitchen door – after peeling off my wet socks and coat downstairs - I was greeted by Cloud standing by the window with a steaming mug something and an expression that screamed, "you're grounded!"

My mouth opened to say something like, "Hello dickhead, your phone wasn't open; I hitched a ride with a molester and ended up making out with him in the passenger seat and you're sitting here drinking shit and giving me _that_ look?!" but ended up making fish eyes at him instead.

Cloud seemed to get the gist of it, and rolled his eyes. "Call me the next time you decide to hang out after school, alright?" My mouth flexed and I pointed a shaky accusing finger at him.

"I - Called..I fu- Wait, I-"

A frown.

"Roxas, my phone's been right here the entir-" Cloud patted his empty pant pocket triumphantly. Then froze.

"…Oh shit."

"That's it. I'm setting Miss Piggie limited edition Winter Princess on fire."


End file.
